Compromise or conflict with the Republicans?

Washington. In his first two weeks of office, Joe Biden did not lack vigor and speed. The new US President signed 45 decrees, raised many Trump regulations and had his spokeswoman announced new messages every day. So far, Biden has not made any progress in his most important project: Without the support of the Senate, he cannot include his 1.9-billion-corona package in the law.

biden is about a directional decision this week: If he tries to pull through the huge auxiliary package with the votes of the Democrats alone, his call to reconciliation of the country gets serious scratch from the start. If he promotes republican help, he may have to make unacceptable concessions and lose valuable time. A meeting planned for Monday evening with ten moderate Republicans could therefore become a litmus test for the non -partisan approach of bidens presidency.

With the auxiliary package, the Biden government wants to send almost every citizen a check for $ 1400 during the crisis, extend the payment of unemployment benefit, support schools and communities and accelerate the vaccination campaign. According to current practice, a majority of 60 votes is required to accept the Senate. However, the Democrats only make up 50 of the 100 senators. In this situation, ten Republicans have signaled their willingness to compromise and presented important points for their own package, which should only cost $ 618 billion.

"All economists said: The current danger is not to do too much, but too little," said Bidens spokeswoman Jen Psaki days ago. Observer believes that it is out of the question that the president reduces his project to a third of the planned volume. Nevertheless, Biden invited the Republican troops around the Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney to the White House in front of leading representatives of the Democrats because, according to PSAKI, he is interested in a "complete exchange of views" - an important signal.

Republicans in the Congress gather behind Donald Trump

Many Democrats in the congress are still skeptical about the search for compromises and are therefore preparing to do this alone. To justify this, they refer to the dramatic shift in law that the majority of Republicans have seen in the past few weeks. Kevin McCarthy, the parliamentary group leader in the House of Representatives, flew to Florida, especially to condemn the favor of ex-President Donald Trump. His colleague Mitch McConnell, the leader of the minority in the Senate, was initially open to Trump's survey, but now described the process as unconstitutional.

Against this background, left senators such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders consider intensive negotiations with Republicans to waste time. In addition, you are not ready to make essential compromises in Biden's plan. So if bids were to make too many concessions, he would ultimately miss the many democratic voices that are required for a majority of 60 votes.

The Alternative supported by bidens progressive party friends means reconciliation and enables projects that relate to the already approved budget with a simple majority. This would probably apply to essential parts of the auxiliary package. However, the procedural trick would annoy the Republicans. Democratic senators like Brian Schatz think this is irrelevant: "It doesn't matter to people whether we say goodbye to 51 or 60 votes. We are in a pandemic and the worst economic crisis for 90 years," the representative from Hawaii tweeted: "We have to deliver. ""

The risk alone carries a significant risk for bidges: only if all 50 democratic senators agree to the project, the coordination of Vice President Kamala Harris is crucial for the law. But a single deviator would give biden a catastrophic defeat and the Republicans a triumph. Two democratic senators have already announced that they are blocking a general abolition of the 60-vote rule. It is still open whether you will support your bypass in a certain case.